Although the Orks are not known for their sharp intellect, they are not entirely devoid of fear.
Faced with an enemy that could not be killed, could not be shattered by explosives, and exhibited brutally efficient slaughter capabilities, even the dimmest-witted Greenskin knew it was time to retreat.
The situation in this sector was quickly disseminated by the few Orks who managed to escape. Soon, all Orks belonging to the Red Fog Klan across the battlefield became aware of the appearance of an unconquerable foe. Stripped of their Warboss, the Orks instantly descended into panic and began a desperate withdrawal.
Some of the Greenskins had even bestowed a moniker upon Axion: The Silver Mechanical Daemon.
Orks possess an instinctual reverence for power, and they displayed extreme fear when confronting the entity that had dispatched their own leader.
Meanwhile, the two Dark Angels were able to piece together the full tactical situation. The banners shouted during the two simultaneous duels revealed that the foe was not a single Ork tribe, as initially assumed, but two klans that had somehow converged: the Red Fog and the Blood Splatter Klans. The two aberrant Ork targets, the Warbosses, had been accounted for: one slain in a duel by Hubert of the Black Templars, and the other summarily beheaded by the ancient construct, Axion, whose intervention had violated the rite of combat.
The leaderless Orks were now frantically evacuating the space station. Some Ork Mekboyz were hastily collecting materials from the damaged sections of the station, working at speed to patch the breaches in their vessels caused by their own reckless impact. Observing the Orks' desperate efforts to repair their ships, the two Dark Angels felt a grudging sense of disbelief. If the Adeptus Mechanicus possessed such efficiency, the wars across the galaxy might be significantly simpler.
Watching the Orks simultaneously fleeing and ceaselessly gathering 'scrap metal' along their escape route, the Dark Angels immediately issued a combat summary, instructing all Astra Militarum and Imperial Navy forces to advance slowly, but to avoid engaging and instead allow the Orks to return to their ships.
Once the Ork 'scrap-vessels' departed the station, the Navy ships, which had been holding their positions and long-since locked their target solutions, could finally be unleashed. Were it not for the strategic importance of the station itself, these crude vessels would have been reduced to a mass of space junk by a single Lance strike. There would have been zero chance of survival for any Orks aboard. The subsequent cleanup would merely require a Destroyer squadron to tow the wreckage toward the nearest star and let momentum carry it into the stellar plasma for disposal.
The only remaining issues were the repair of the three decks that had been breached by the Melta Bomb, the processing of tens of thousands of casualties among the station personnel, and the relatively minor damage to the station's enormous, domed superstructure.
These matters were irrelevant to Axion and the Astartes. The Administratum would handle such tiresome complexities. Space Marines did not concern themselves with bureaucracy.
Everything transpired exactly as the Dark Angels had planned. The Orks smoothly withdrew to their scrap-ships, their Mekboyz completing a crude external patch of the hulls. The vessels swiftly retreated, attempting to gain distance from the station.
But the Imperial Navy had already established a cordon.
Mere kilometres from the station, dozens of Lance beams erupted from the flanks of the Navy fleet, quickly obliterating the Ork vessels and turning them into genuine space debris.
The Black Templars and the Dark Angels were required to attend a debriefing with the Station Cluster Commandant and the overall Defense Marshal. Axion, however, had no interest in such 'social interaction.'
Meanwhile, the two Magi of the Mechanicus aboard the battle-barge Indomitable were so excited they were practically venting unction. Through the recorded telemetry streamed from the Astartes' Power Armour, they had witnessed Axion's combat prowess firsthand. When the construct was struck by the Melta Bomb, they had harboured a fleeting concern for its structural integrity. Yet, clearly, such worries were redundant. The silver chassis had effortlessly carved through the Orks and then displayed a potent ranged attack capability. The bright yellow beam, capable of instantly incinerating organic matter, filled them with fervent curiosity.
The Imperium was not without Neutron Beam weaponry, and the two Magi had identified the weapon type merely by observing its effect. Yet, the power and compact size displayed by Axion's weapon were far beyond Imperial achievement—a powerful weapon small enough to be integrated into a variable mechanical arm. This was as unbelievable as watching a standard Guardsman successfully challenge an Astartes while armed only with a Boltgun.
To sate their collective curiosity, the two Magi specifically requisitioned a Thunderhawk Gunship to retrieve Axion immediately. Axion, having no desire for the upcoming politicking, readily returned to the Indomitable.
Accompanying him were the Apothecary Ousen and the gravely wounded Hubert, who was now held in a state of suspended animation. Ousen required immediate access to the ship's advanced medical facilities to treat Hubert. The immense trauma had left the Black Templar in critical condition.
An Astartes' modified internal organs are vastly different from a baseline human's, yet one of Hubert's twin hearts had ceased function, one lung was completely non-responsive, and his enhanced ribcage, where the ribs fuse to form reinforced bone plates, had been fractured, with numerous bone fragments embedded in his vital organs. Through the wound that had penetrated his Ceramite armour, fragmented armour shards could be seen driven into his body, beneath the skin a rupturing layer of the black Carapace.
This sub-dermal implant covers the entire body and interfaces with the nervous system, serving as one of the primary reasons Astartes remain agile despite wearing thick Power Armour. The armour's electronic muscle bundles are connected via neural interfaces to the Black Carapace and the Astartes' nervous system, allowing the heavy armour to be worn like a second skin. The synthetic muscle fibres synchronize with the Space Marine's movements as though they were his own musculature.
Beneath the Black Carapace lay lacerated, dense muscle and the ceramic-infused plates of his ribs. The Astartes' rib structure is radically different from a normal human's. All the ribs expand laterally and fuse with their neighbours, ultimately forming a thick, resilient bone plate within the torso. Specialized organ modifications allow them to absorb certain metal components. In fact, custom-made Ceramite composites are added as food additives to the high-energy rations reserved for Space Marines. These materials are absorbed and incorporated into the entire skeletal system, vastly enhancing the Space Marine's ability to withstand physical stress.
It was these very modifications that allowed Hubert to survive such a severe injury, rather than being disembowelled like the Ork Warboss.
The Orks, a race engineered for war by the Old Ones, possess physical strength comparable to the Emperor's demi-gods. While a common Ork would not be a match for a fully armoured Astartes, the Warboss was far from common.
Since the Orks were loosed upon the galaxy, their frenzied ideological belief system quickly caused a psychic reaction, giving rise to two entities within the Warp: Gork and Mork. These two are typically referred to by the Orks collectively as Gork and Mork. Orks believe that Gork represents brutality but is cunning, while Mork represents cunning but is brutally savage. Gork always attacks head-on, while Mork is responsible for sneaky attacks. However, both Warp deities share a primary trait: a love of fighting. This characteristic stems directly from the Orks' fervent, species-wide instinct for warfare.
Every Ork who survives a war receives a boost of psychic energy from the Warp, making them stronger and more cunning. The Warbosses are the individuals who profit most from every conflict, which is why a Warboss is nearly always the strongest and most cunning Ork within its current Klan.
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